24 Apr 2025 | Americas, Europe and Central Asia, News and features, Newsletters, United Kingdom, United States
The repercussions of Donald Trump’s tariffs continue to spiral with the escalating US-China trade war and the World Trade Organization warning of an impending sharp decline in global trade. But perhaps even more concerning is how the USA’s threats of taxation are increasingly being used to coax significant societal policy changes out of other governments.
Talks have intensified between the UK and US governments around tariffs, with US Vice President JD Vance reportedly putting pressure on UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to adopt the US administration’s anti-DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) agenda to secure a mutually beneficial trade deal.
A Washington source told The Independent that Starmer is being asked to repeal hate speech laws, particularly those which protect LGBTQ+ people and other minority groups, and online safety legislation in order to get a deal over the line with the USA and reduce the UK’s tariffs.
Trade wars have quickly escalated into culture wars. Of course, there are legitimate questions to be asked about the increasing scope of online policing in the UK. Earlier this year, we saw the UK government’s stealthy introduction of an order to create a “backdoor” to Apple’s encrypted data, which could have serious implications for users’ data privacy. Apple has since launched an appeal to the decision and Index, Big Brother Watch and the Open Rights Group have successfully argued that the case should not be heard in secret.
But as we well know, Trump is no bastion of universal free speech. His administration continues to crack down on and criminalise protestors, academics and journalists who do not align with its values, while legal and financial threats are being used to erode civil liberties and human rights. The recent demands on universities that they abandon their diversity programmes or face losing their federal funding, for example, further silences already marginalised voices. Meanwhile, ongoing threats to dismantle stalwart media institutions such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty speak volumes about the government’s attitude towards fair and objective reporting.
Pressure to adopt the US’s cultural ideology is not just coming from the government. Another story this week revealed how requests to remove books from UK libraries, particularly those containing LGBTQ+ themes, are on the rise, influenced by pressure groups in the USA who have advocated for book bans. This marries up with exclusive research that Index’s assistant editor Katie Dancey-Downs carried out last year, which found that 28 of 53 UK librarians polled reported that they had been asked to remove books from their shelves.
The influence of US cultural policy is both overt and covert. In the social media age, free speech is a complex and thorny issue that continues to evolve every day. But what is clear is that the USA is increasingly imposing its policies abroad – and ultimately this could hinder, rather than help, our ability to speak freely.
23 Apr 2025 | Americas, News and features, United States, Volume 54.01 Spring 2025
This article first appeared in Volume 54, Issue 1 of our print edition of Index on Censorship, titled The forgotten patients: Lost voices in the global healthcare system. Read more about the issue here. The issue was published on 11 April 2025.
Even before the Senate confirmed Robert F Kennedy Jr as US health secretary, the Trump administration was wreaking havoc with government agencies vital to medical research and equitable healthcare.
Ignoring Title IV of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race, colour or nationality, the White House removed swathes of data from the websites of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) overnight, in an effort to purge the agencies of what Elon Musk has dubbed “the woke mind virus”.
Gone were vaccine guidelines for “pregnant people” and regulatory guidelines on increasing diversity in clinical trials. Even the Department of Veteran Affairs felt the impact of Musk and Donald Trump’s anti-DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) crusade, deleting advice on LGBTQ+ veteran care.
This was followed by a 90-day freeze and stop-work order on the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), jeopardising the lives of millions of people around the world who depend on its programmes for the prevention of diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.
How precisely this will make America – or the world – “healthy again”, to quote the slogan of Kennedy’s MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) movement, is a question that he may now wish to ponder. In his new role as director of Health and Human Services – a $1.7 trillion agency with 80,000 employees – Kennedy will be responsible for everything from medical research and pandemic prevention to regulating the cost of medicine and health insurance for the poorest Americans.
On the campaign trail, Kennedy also promised to lift safety regulations on unpasteurised “raw” milk – a potential source of bird flu – and take a “break” from infectious disease research (including for Covid-19) by having the National Institutes of Health (NIH) pivot to chronic diseases such as diabetes.
But it is Kennedy’s well-documented antipathy to vaccines that could have the most far-reaching impacts. Asked during the Senate Health Committee hearing whether he accepted studies debunking the theory that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine caused autism – a theory he has supported – Kennedy promised to be “an advocate for strong science”, adding that “if the data is there, I will absolutely do that.”
But for those who have followed the activities of Kennedy’s Children’s Health Defence non-profit closely, his efforts to roll back on previous anti-vax statements are not to be trusted. Indeed, even as Kennedy was testifying, a lawyer for Informed Consent Action Network – a non-profit whose founder is a close ally of Kennedy – was petitioning the FDA to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine. The vaccine is estimated to have prevented 20 million cases of paralysis globally and is widely regarded as one of the greatest achievements of US medicine.
Nor would Kennedy agree to sever his stake in ongoing litigation on behalf of people claiming to have been damaged by Gardasil, the Merck vaccine that protects against the human papillomavirus. According to financial disclosure documents filed ahead of his confirmation, Kennedy’s arrangement with law firm Wisner Baum guarantees him 10% of payouts from successful Gardasil settlements – an arrangement from which he has earned more than $2.5 million in the past two years.
Ascertaining what Kennedy believes and understands by “science” is a fool’s errand. As the editorial board of the New York Post concluded when it met him in May 2023, when it comes to medical issues his views are “a head-scratching spaghetti of what we can only call warped conspiracy theories”.
The Committee to Protect Health Care, a pro-patients doctors’ group, agrees. In a letter opposing Kennedy’s nomination, it said that, as health secretary, his policies would hit vulnerable communities particularly hard, putting millions of lives at risk.
Kennedy is reportedly considering axing or changing a key vaccine advisory committee – a move that could prompt healthcare providers to offer fewer jabs to children and inspire states to repeal recommended vaccination schedules. According to the CDC, over the past 30 years childhood vaccines have prevented an estimated 1.1 million deaths and 32 million hospital admissions in the USA. The fear is that disruption to these schedules could harm community immunisation levels, which are already down on pre-pandemic numbers.
Just as worrying is Kennedy’s record of aligning himself with propaganda films such as Medical Racism: The New Apartheid, which specifically targeted Black Americans to discourage them from getting vaccinations. In the past, Kennedy has suggested that Black people do not need to follow the same vaccine schedule as white people “because their immune system is better than ours” – a view that drew a stinging rebuke from Angela Alsobrooks, the Democrat senator from Maryland, during cross-examination.
Equally dangerous is Kennedy’s record of intervening in public health crises. In 2018, he flew to Samoa to support a campaign that falsely suggested the MMR vaccine was unsafe. Several months later, a massive measles outbreak hit more than 5,700 people in Samoa and left 83 dead, most of them young children.
And during the Covid-19 pandemic he reportedly suggested that the coronavirus could have been “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people – a claim that is both antisemitic and scientifically highly implausible.
During the hearings, Kennedy displayed a tenuous grasp of Medicaid and other US federal healthcare programmes he would oversee. In particular, he didn’t seem to understand the role of community health centres, where many low-income Americans receive care, or that cuts to Medicaid would be particularly harmful to Black and Hispanic people, who are more likely than white people to be uninsured.
But perhaps the most revealing exchange came when Bernie Sanders, the independent senator for Vermont, asked Kennedy whether he agreed that healthcare was a fundamental human right. Kennedy’s response that healthcare should not be treated the same way as free speech and that long-term cigarette smokers were “taking from the [insurance] pool” tells you everything about his eugenicist and libertarian mindset.
Listening to Kennedy’s often-incoherent replies, it is hard not to conclude that he is someone who has studied a little medical history but has failed to absorb the lessons of germ theory or the role of social and economic conditions in determining health. Along with antibiotics, vaccines have saved more lives than any other technology in medical history. And while Kennedy’s desire to wean Americans off processed foods would no doubt go some way to addressing chronic conditions such as obesity, his plan to remove fluoride from community water would not be helpful. On the contrary, his claims that fluoridation is connected to lower IQs is based on very flawed science.
Indeed, fluoridation is one of the most beneficial public health interventions in history. Prior to its introduction in the 1940s, Americans suffered from high levels of tooth decay. For those who cannot afford fluoride toothpaste or regular visits to the dentist, de-fluoridation would likely result in a surge in dental cavities. Not so much MAHA then as MATA – Make America Toothless Again.
See also
17 Apr 2025 | Africa, Americas, Belarus, Europe and Central Asia, Mexico, News and features, Nigeria, United Kingdom, United States
Today, the torrent of online information, misinformation and disinformation makes it harder than ever to stay in the loop. As we get bombarded with news from all angles, important stories can easily pass us by. To help you cut through the noise, every Friday Index publishes a weekly news roundup of some of the key stories covering censorship and free expression from the past seven days. This week, we look at more news from Donald Trump’s USA, yet another rapper having his music banned for criticising the powerful, and the announcement of a new uncensored social media network from former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss.
Deportations: Trump administration faces contempt ruling over ignoring Supreme Court order
US district judge Paula Xinis says she is considering instigating contempt proceedings against the Trump administration for failing to facilitate the return to the US of Salvadorean national Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who was deported in March.
Garcia, originally from El Salvador but who entered the US illegally as a teenager, is one of tens of alleged members of the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gangs who were flown on US military planes and detained in El Salvador’s notorious Cecot (Terrorism Confinement Centre) in March. Garcia’s lawyer denies he is a member of either gang.
Garcia’s deportation came despite an immigration judge’s 2019 order barring him from being sent to his home country. The US Government said he was taken there as the result of an “administrative error”.
On 11 April, the US Supreme Court ruled unanimously (9-0) that the Trump administration must “facilitate” Garcia’s release.
Trump advisor Stephen Miller has since portrayed the ruling as being unanimously in favour of the government. “We won a case 9-0, but people like CNN are portraying it as a loss,” he said. This is despite the Supreme Court declining to block the Maryland District Court ruling that the government should do everything in its power to facilitate his return. On a recent visit to the US, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele said he won’t release García because he isn’t fond of releasing people from his prisons, adding that he didn’t have “the power” to return him to the USA.
The New Yorker says the Trump administration has “slow-walked or outright failed to comply with court orders related to a range of issues, most notably immigration and government funding”.
Music censorship: Afrobeat track criticising Nigeria’s President banned
On 9 April, Nigeria’s National Broadcasting Commission banned the Afrobeat track Tell Your Papa from TV and radio.
Tell Your Papa was released three days earlier by the rapper Eedris Abdulkareem with lyrics in Nigerian Pidgin English and Yoruba. The song is aimed at Seyi Tinubu, the son of Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu, calling on him to ask his father about his jet-setting lifestyle against a backdrop of worsening socio-economic conditions in the country.
Abdulkareem rose to prominence in the 1990s as a pioneer of Nigerian hip-hop as part of the group The Remedies.
Throughout his career, he has courted controversy with his music, attacking sexual harassment in Nigeria’s universities in the song Mr Lecturer and criticising corruption and poor governance by former President Olusegun Obasanjo on the 2004 album Jaga Jaga, the title track of which was banned.
Reporting curtailed: Families of exiled Belarusian journalists harassed
Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka has continued his crackdown on independent journalists in exile reporting on the country and its president from abroad.
The Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), which was declared an extremist organisation and banned from operating in Belarus in 2023, has reported that security forces in the country have intensified pressure on journalists remaining in Belarus, as well as on the relatives of media workers forced into exile.
BAJ reports that security officers have visited the registered addresses of independent journalists who are currently working abroad. In some instances, these visits included searches of the premises in connection with criminal cases opened against the journalists.
In January, the United Nations criticised the country for the growing use of in-absentia trials – there were 110 people subjected to these trials in 2024 compared to 18 in 2023. BAJ says that a large number of media workers have become subjects of criminal investigations as a result.
Many Belarusian journalists have also been added to Russia’s wanted persons database at the request of the Belarusian authorities, according to Mediazona. The list includes Belsat TV channel director Alina Kovshik, Euroradio’s Maria Kolesnikova and Zmitser Lukashuk, and Radio Svaboda’s Dmitry Gurnevich and Oleg Gruzdilovich from Radio Svaboda.
Journalists under attack: Indigenous radio reporter intimidated after criticising Mexican road project
An Indigenous journalist and human rights defender has received intimidating messages and calls from local authorities in Mexico after she reported on a case of land dispossession that potentially involved one of the authority’s advisors.
Miryam Vargas Teutle is a Nahua Indigenous communicator from the Choluteca region of the country who works as a journalist for Cholollan Radio. In the radio show, Vargas highlighted the Bajadas del Periférico road construction project, which could affect the ancestral territories of the Tlaxcalancingo people and limit their access to water.
After the programme was aired, posts attempting to discredit her work appeared on Facebook and she allegedly started to receive intimidating WhatsApp messages and calls by staff of the municipality of San Andrés Cholula.
According to Vargas, the senders also threatened to restrict Cholollan Radio’s airtime.
Social media: Former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss to launch social network
The Conservative ex-Prime Minister Liz Truss, who succeeded Boris Johnson in 2022 until she resigned just over six weeks later, has said she wants to launch an “uncensored” social network to counter mainstream media.
Truss’s plans mirrors those of US President Donald Trump, who launched Truth Social in 2021 to provide a platform for “people of all political stripes, and all different viewpoints, to come and participate once again in the great American debate”.
Truss revealed the news at a cryptocurrency conference in Bedford last weekend. She said the UK needs a network that is “really demanding change of our leaders” and that issues were “suppressed or promoted” by the mainstream media – “the kind of thing that we used to see going on in the Soviet Union”.
11 Apr 2025 | Americas, Asia and Pacific, Israel, Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Pakistan, United States
In the age of online information, it can feel harder than ever to stay informed. As we get bombarded with news from all angles, important stories can easily pass us by. To help you cut through the noise, every Friday Index will publish a weekly news roundup of some of the key stories covering censorship and free expression from the past seven days. This week, we look at targeted families of activists in two parts of the world and how the US president is punishing those who defy him.
Activists under pressure: Human rights defenders in Balochistan face new threats
On 5 April, the father of Baloch human rights defender Sabiha Baloch was arrested by Pakistani authorities, and his whereabouts are currently unknown. This has been widely considered as an attempt to silence Sabiha Baloch, who advocates for the rights of Baloch people, in particular against the killings, enforced disappearances and arbitrary arrests that have been happening for years.
There are reports that authorities refuse to release Baloch’s father until she surrenders herself, and raids are being carried out in an attempt to arrest her. This is not the first attempt to silence her. Other family members have previously been abducted and held in detention for several months.
Two days later on 7 April, another Baloch human rights defender, Gulzadi Baloch, was arrested. It is believed that her arrest was particularly violent, and that she was beaten and dragged out onto the street. Both women are members of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee, which advocates for human rights for Baloch people. Its founder, Mahrang Baloch, was arrested on 22 March along with 17 other protesters, after they staged a sit-in to demand the release of members of their group. During the crackdown, at least three protesters were reportedly killed.
Toeing the line: Trump gets to work silencing critics
US President Donald Trump has made several attempts to silence or punish his critics this week. On 9 April, he signed an executive order placing restrictions on the law firm Susman Godfrey, including limiting attorneys from accessing government buildings and revoking security clearances. The firm represented Dominion Voting System in their defamation lawsuit against Fox, accusing the media company of lying about a plot to steal the election and claiming Dominion was involved. It ended with Dominion getting a $797.5m settlement in April 2023. This week’s move comes after Trump took similar measures to target five more law firms, connected with his political rivals.
The next day, Trump took aim at former homeland security officials, Miles Taylor and Chris Krebs, who both served in Trump’s first administration and both publicly spoke out against Trump’s election fraud narrative.
Taylor turned whistleblower in 2018, anonymously speaking out in a New York Times article and after quitting writing a book, before eventually revealing his identity. Trump has accused him of leaking classified information. Krebs, whose job it was to prevent foreign interference in elections, corrected rumours about voter fraud in the 2020 election, and was subsequently fired by Trump. Trump has ordered the Department of Justice to investigate the two men, and revoke their security clearances.
Attorney and former congresswoman Liz Cheney described the move as “Stalinesque”. As he signed the executive orders, Trump took the opportunity to repeat lies about a stolen election.
Not safe to report: Journalists killed as Israeli airstrike hits media tent
On Monday, an Israeli airstrike hit a tent in southern Gaza used by media workers, killing several journalists and injuring others. The journalists killed were Hilma al-Faqawi and Ahmed Mansour, who worked for Palestine Today, wth Mansour dying later following severe burns. Yousef al-Khozindar, who was working with NBC to provide support in Gaza, was also killed.
Reuters say they have verified one video, which shows people trying to douse the flames of the tent in the Nasser Hospital compound. The Committee to Protect Journalists and the National Union of Journalists have denounced Israel’s strike on the journalists’ tent.
The Israel Defense Forces wrote on X: “The IDF and ISA struck the Hamas terrorist Hassan Abdel Fattah Mohammed Aslih in the Khan Yunis area overnight” … “Asilh [sic], who operates under the guise of a journalist and owns a press company, is a terrorist operative in Hamas’ Khan Yunis Brigade.”
The deaths add to the growing number of journalists and media workers who have been killed in the conflict since 7 October 2023, which the International Federation of Journalists place at over 170. The journalists killed are Lebanese, Syrian, Israeli and overwhelmingly Palestinian. Journalists are protected under International Humanitarian law. This is vital not only for the safety of individuals, but so that accurate information can be broadcast locally and internationally.
Whistleblowing triumphs: Apple settles unfair labour charges
Whistleblower Ashley Gjøvik came out on top on 10 April, when Apple agreed to settle labour rights charges after she claimed their practices were illegal, including barring staff from discussing working hours, conditions and wages, and speaking to the press.
Gjøvik was a senior engineering programme manager at the tech giant, when she raised her concerns about toxic waste under her office. She was fired after engaging in activities that should be protected under labour rights laws. She was let go after supposedly violating the staff confidentiality agreement.
In a memorandum, Gjøvik highlighted that there is still plenty to be concerned about. She wrote: “The settlement’s policy revisions, while significant—do not address several categories of retaliation and coercive behavior that remain unremedied or unexamined, including: surveillance, email interception, and device monitoring in relation to protected activities; threats or internal referrals aimed at chilling protected disclosures; and retaliation based on public statements regarding working conditions.”
Circles of influence: Hong Kong family taken in for questioning
On Thursday, the Hong Kong national security police targeted the family of Frances Hui, a staff member at the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong (CFHK) Foundation, and a US resident.
Hui’s parents were taken in for questioning, even though Hui cut ties with them when she left for the USA in 2020. She now fights for democracy and freedom in Hong Kong, from abroad. This week’s move comes shortly after the USA placed sanctions on six Chinese and Hong Kong officials who have enforced repressive national security policies in Hong Kong.
In December 2023, Hong Kong police put out an arrest warrant for Hui, and placed a HK$1 million bounty on her head.
The CFHK Foundation said: “By placing a bounty on her and other U.S-based Hong Kong activists, the Hong Kong authorities are encouraging people to kidnap them on U.S. soil in return for a reward.”
